The discovery of a body in the Paris Metro early one morning was not particularly unusual. That it was headless sent a frisson through the sixth arrondissement, but the incident went unnoticed outside Paris.

Yet there was clearly something strange about the case. It was hardly as though the body had been decapitated to frustrate identification, for it was fully clothed and none of the owner’s personal effects had been removed, save of course for his head. The Paris police soon tied up the contents of the dead man’s wallet with forensic evidence from the body. Added to that, Madame Charente, the dead man’s wife, could positively identify the body in the most intimate ways. (She had already reported her husband as missing.)

A few men were despatched to poke around in the warm, dark tunnels on either side of Odéon station, where the body had been found. Above ground another search was made, equally fruitlessly, and to Inspector Dutruelle it looked as though the case would linger on unsolved.

Two weeks later, four kilometres away in the west, a headless body was found at Courcelles station, again in the tunnel not far from the platform. As in the earlier case, the cause of death was apparently the severing of the head, which appeared to have been done with some precision. Again, the body was fully clothed and easily identified, and nothing but the head had apparently been removed.

“What can I tell these blessed reporters?” Inspector Dutruelle said as he handed his wife the two sticks of bread he usually bought on the way home. “They want answers for everything. And it’s not just the papers now, the politicians are getting worried too. I’m reporting to the Préfet on this one.”

“If there were instant answers for everything, mon petit chou, they’d have no need of you,” said Madame Dutruelle. “And where would they be without you? Who cleared up that terrible Clichy case last year, and the acid bath at Reuilly Diderot?”

The little inspecteur divisionnaire-chef pulled in his stomach, puffed out his chest and rose to his full height. A smile spread across his round face. In his smart dark suit and gold-rimmed glasses you could have taken him for a provincial bank manager rather than one of Paris’s most successful policemen.

“Just think,” he said wryly, “they were actually about to close the file on Dr Gomes before I took charge of the investigation.”

“They’re fools, all of them.”

“All the same, my dear, I don’t know where to go on this one. There’re no leads. There’s no apparent motive. And it’s a bizarre pattern. Assuming, of course, it is a pattern. We can’t be sure of that until there’s been another.”

Inspector Dutruelle did not have long to wait for his pattern to emerge. A telephone call at half past five the next morning dragged him from his bed.

“It’s another one, sir,” said the voice at the other end.

“Another what?”

“It’s identical. Another headless corpse, just like the others – male, middle-aged, white.”

“Where?” asked Inspector Dutruelle fumbling for a cigarette.

“Château Rouge.”

“In the Metro?”

“Yes sir, just inside the tunnel. In the anti-suicide well between the tracks.”

“Close the line – if you haven’t already. I’ll be with you soon. And don’t move it, d’you hear?”

Inspector Dutruelle replaced the receiver with a sigh as his wife padded into the room.

“I hate these early morning cases,” he muttered. He lit his cigarette.

“Have a coffee before you go. Another dead body will keep.”

“But we’ve closed the line. And it’s the other side of town, my dear. North Paris.”

“All the same.”

He sat down heavily and watched his wife sullenly as she made the coffee. Madame Dutruelle was a simple woman of forty-six whose long, thin-lipped face was framed by stern grey hair. Her strong, practical hands were country hands, and she had never got used to city life. She lived for the day when she and her husband would retire to their home village in Les Pyrenées. Inspector Dutruelle sighed to himself again. Poor Agnes. She tried so hard to please him. How could she know that he longed to be free of her? How could she possibly know of Vololona, the young Malagasy he had met while on the Clichy case? For him it had been love at first sight.

“And for me too, my darling,” Vololona had been quick to agree, her large brown eyes welling with tears as they gazed at him through the smoke of the Chatte et Lapin where she worked, “a veritable coup de foudre.” She spoke French well, with a Malagasy accent and huskiness that left you with a sense of mystery and promise. Inspector Dutruelle was a happy man; but he was careful to tell no-one except Monsieur Chébaut, his closest friend, about the source of his happiness.

“I’ve never felt like this before, Pierre. I’m captivated by her,” he said one evening when he took Monsieur Chébaut to see Vololona dancing.

It was a rare experience, even for the jaded Monsieur Chébaut. In the frantic coloured spotlights of the Chatte et Lapin Vololona danced solo and in her vitality you sensed the wildness of Madagascar. Her black limbs lashed the air to the music, which was raw and sensual.

“You know, Pierre, in thirty years of marriage I was never unfaithful. Well, you know that already. There was always my work, and the children, and I was happy enough at home. It never occurred to me to look at another woman. But something happened when I met Vololona. She showed me how to live. She showed me what real ecstasy is. Look at her, Pierre. Isn’t she the most exquisite thing you ever saw? And she adores me. She’s crazy about me. But why, I ask you? What can she see in me – three times her age, pot-bellied, bald . . . married?”

Inspector Dutruelle leaned back in his chair and swung around to look at the other customers applauding Vololona from the shadows. He smiled proudly to himself. He knew exactly what was on their minds. Life was strange, he thought, and you could never tell. Some of them were young men, tall and handsome and virile, yet none of them knew Vololona as he knew her.

Monsieur Chébaut finished his whisky.

“I can see,” he said, “that a man in your position might have certain attractions for an immigrant without papers working in one of the more dangerous quarters of Paris.” Monsieur Chébaut was a lawyer.

“You’re a cynic, Pierre.”

“And after thirty years in the force you’re not?”

“Personally, I believe her when she says she loves me. I just don’t know why. Another whisky?”

“Well, one thing’s for sure, Régis, it can’t go on like that. One way or another things’ll come to a head. But I must agree, she’s exquisite all right. Like an exquisite Venus flytrap. And at the germane moment, you know, those soft, succulent petals will close around you like a vice.”

The normally placid Inspector was piqued by his friend’s unreasonable attitude.

“How can you say that?” he snapped. “When you haven’t even spoken to her.”

“But all women are the same, Régis. Don’t you know that? You should be a lawyer, then you’d know it. They can’t help it, they’re built that way. Believe me, it can’t go on without something happening.”

Inspector Dutruelle glowered at his old schoolfriend and said nothing. Monsieur Chébaut could see he had touched a raw nerve. He grinned amicably and leaned across to slap his friend playfully on the shoulder.

“Look Régis, all I’m saying is, be careful, you haven’t got my experience.”

Of course, that was true. When it came to women few men had Monsieur Chébaut’s experience. Or his luck, for that matter. He was one of those people who go through life insulated from difficulties. He crossed roads without looking. He did not hurry for trains. He never reconciled bank accounts. Tall, slim, with boyish good looks and thick, black, wavy hair, he was the antithesis of Inspector Dutruelle.

“Look, you’ve got two women involved, Régis,” Monsieur Chébaut continued, “and women aren’t like us. Agnes isn’t stupid. She must know something’s going on.”

“She hasn’t said anything,” said the Inspector brusquely. He lit another Gauloise.

“Of course she hasn’t. She’s cleverer than you are. She intends to keep you.”

“Mind you,” said Inspector Dutruelle grudgingly, “she has had some odd dreams recently – so she says. About me and another woman. But anyway, she just laughs and says she can’t believe it.”

“But Régis, you must know that what we say and what we think are seldom the same.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I ought to tell her something, if only out of decency.”

Monsieur Chébaut nearly choked on the fresh whisky he had just put to his lips.

“No,” he cried with a passion that surprised the Inspector, “never, you must never tell her. Écoute Régis, even if she did mention it, you must deny everything. Even if she caught the two of you in the act, you must deny it. You can only tell a woman there’s another when you’ve definitively made up your mind to leave her, and even then it may not be safe.”

“So much for logic.”

“It’s no use looking for logic in women, Régis. I told you, they’re not like men. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re not even the same species as men. Men and women aren’t like dog and bitch, they’re more like dog and cat. C’est bizarre, non? In any case, I do know you can’t keep two women on the go without something happening. I don’t know what, but something.”

Now the European press had picked the story up and the little Inspector did not know how to deal with the international reporters who hung around like flies outside the old stone walls of the Préfecture de police. Their stories focussed on the bizarre nature of the killings, and the idea that there were three severed heads somewhere in Paris particularly excited them. They wanted constantly to know more. So of course did Inspector Dutruelle.

“I assure you, gentlemen,” he told a press conference, “we are at least as anxious as you to recover the missing parts. We are doing everything possible. You can tell your readers that wherever they are, we’ll find them.”

“Can we have photographs of the victims for our readers?” asked one of the foreign reporters.

“So as we know which heads we’re looking for,” added a journalist from London.

It was a joke that was not shared by the people of Paris. Suddenly the normally carnival atmosphere of the Metro had evaporated. Buskers no longer worked the coaches between stations. Puppeteers and jugglers no longer entertained passengers with impromptu performances. Even the beggars, who habitually hung around the crowded stations or made impassioned speeches in the carriages, had gone. And the few passengers who remained sat more long-faced than ever, or walked more hastily down the long corridors between platforms.

Inspector Dutruelle despaired of ever clearing the case up. His mind, already excited over Vololona, was now in a turmoil. Vololona had suddenly, and tearfully, announced that she was pregnant. Then, having accepted his financial assistance to terminate the pregnancy – but refusing his offer to take her to the clinic – she told him one day on the telephone: “I thought you were going to ask me to marry you.” Inspector Dutruelle was stunned.

“But you know I’m married, ma chérie,” he said.

“I thought you’d leave Agnes,” she replied. “I wanted to be with you. I wanted to share everything with you . . . my child . . . my life . . . my bed.” Inspector Dutruelle could hear her sobbing.

“But darling, we can still see each other.”

“No, it’s too painful. I love you too much.”

Inspector Dutruelle could not concentrate on his work at all. Day and night his thoughts were on Vololona; he longed to be with her. If only Agnes would leave him. And if only Vololona would be satisfied with what he gave her already – the dinners, the presents, the apartment. Why did women have to possess you? It seemed that the more you gave them the more they took, until there was nothing left to give but yourself. Perhaps Pierre was right after all, when you thought about it.

The investigation into the Metro murders was proceeding dismally. Inspector Dutruelle had no suspect, no leads, no motive. His superiors complained about his lack of progress and the press ridiculed him without pity. “It appears,” commented France-Soir, “that the only thing Inspector Dutruelle can tell us with certainty is that with each fresh atrocity the Metro station name grows longer.” The detectives under him could not understand what had happened to their normally astute Inspector, and they felt leaderless and demoralised. It was left to the security police of the Metro to point out one rather obvious fact: that the three stations where bodies had been found had one thing in common – their lines intersected at Metro Barbes Rochechouart, and it seemed that something might be learned by taking the Metro between them.

Inspector Dutruelle did not like public transport, and he especially did not like the Metro. It was cramped, smelly and claustrophobic at the best of times, and in the summer it was hot. You stood on the very edge of the platform just to feel the breeze as the blue and white trains pulled into the station. It was years since the Inspector had used the Metro.

“I can’t take much more of this, Marc,” he said to the young Detective Constable who was travelling with him, “it’s too hot. We’ll get off at the next stop.”

“That’s Barbes Rochechouart, sir. We can change there.”

“No, Marc. We can get out there. Someone else can take a sauna, I’ve had enough. Anyway, we need to have a look around.” Inspector Dutruelle wiped his brow. He sounded irritable. “God knows what it’s like normally,” he added.

When the train pulled in they took the exit for Boulevard de Rochechouart.

“At least we can get through now,” said the Detective Constable as they walked up the passage towards the escalator.

“How d’you mean?” asked Inspector Dutruelle.

“Well, normally this station’s packed – beggars, passengers, buskers, hawkers, plus all their tables and stalls. It’s like a damn great fair and market rolled into one. You can get anything here, from Eiffel Towers to cabbages and potatoes – not to mention a spot of cannabis or heroin.”

“Oh, yes,” said Inspector Dutruelle, vaguely. “I remember.” He passed a handkerchief across his brow again.

At the turnstyles a man was handing out publicity cards and he thrust one into Inspector Dutruelle’s hand. Glancing down at it and squinting in the bright sunlight, the Inspector read aloud: “‘Professor Dhiakobli, Grand Médium Voyant can help you succeed rapidly in all areas of life . . .'”

He broke off in mid-sentence with a snort.

“What a lot of mumbo-jumbo! Headless chickens and voodoo magic.”

“It may be mumbo-jumbo to you, sir,” said the Detective Constable with a laugh, “but round here they take that sort of thing seriously. And not only round here – after all, we use some of these techniques in the police, don’t we?”

“Oh really? Such as?”

“Well, graphology for a start – you can hardly call basing a murder case on the size of someone’s handwriting scientific, can you sir? Or what about astrology – employing people on the basis of the stars? Or numerology.”

“Yes, Marc,” said Inspector Dutruelle, pushing the card into his top pocket, “maybe you’re right, and maybe when you’re older you won’t be so sure. Now get on the blower and call the car.”

The hot July turned to hotter and more humid August. No more bodies were found in the sweltering tunnels of the Metro, and the media, bored with the lack of developments, left Inspector Dutruelle to his original obscurity. Paris, deserted by its citizens in the yearly exodus to the coast, was tolerable only to the tourists with backpacks who flocked to the cheap hotels and began again to crowd the Metro. Then, in September, the Parisiens came back and life returned to normal.

But Inspector Dutruelle’s passion for Vololona did not cool with the season. Vololona had at last agreed to see him, occasionally; but she always managed (with tears in her eyes) to deflect his more amorous advances. For Inspector Dutruelle it was beneath him to observe that he continued to pay the rent on her apartment, but he was growing increasingly frustrated. The notion that she had another lover obsessed him, and in the evenings he took to prowling the broad Boulevard de Clichy between her apartment and the Chatte et Lapin. Sometimes he would stand for hours watching her door, as locals strolled past with their dogs or sat on the benches under the plane trees. Now, denied the one thing here he wanted, the scene filled him with dismay. Money and music were in the air. Lovers sipped coffee in the open and watched the whores in their doorways. Pigeons fluttered as girls in tight mini-skirts hurried to work. Tourists with their Deutschmarks arrived by the busload and the touts in dark glasses worked hard to coax them into the expensive sex shows and neon-lit video clubs. Somewhere deep below ran the Metro; but Inspector Dutruelle had no more interest in that. His superiors had given up hope of solving the Metro murders and had moved him on to other things. Sometimes he would stay all night, leaving to the tinkle of broken glass as workmen swept up after the night’s revelries. Occasionally he would see Vololona leave her apartment to buy cigarettes, but he never once saw her on the arm of another man, or saw a male visitor take the lift to the seventh floor.